A Mighty Wind

I had to walk for just five minutes behind our house to take this picture, a view which still has the power to stop me dead in my tracks.

We have some big weather. High winds, lashing rain, a possibility of snow forecast for the weekend. Yesterday when I was driving there was sleet, the snow component of it like tiny slush puppies on the windscreen.
A lot of our power cables here are above ground and we have many big trees. So, branches falling from trees or heavy snow plus exposed power lines, I'm sure you can join the dots. The power company, BC Hydro has just put its hands in the air and said they can't cope with the repairs. Friends here are muttering darkly about how they manage to bury the power cables in Manitoba where the ground is like rock and the temperatures in the winter forty degrees below.
Much of the Province is without power and we wonder whether we'll be next, the TV kept losing reception yesterday early evening.
On the radio, the company that is responsible for keeping the highway that goes to Whistler clear of snow, are not going to be getting their bonuses because they haven't been doing their job properly. Great to have snow on the mountains for the tourists, but not if they can't get to them.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in Paris, public transport goes from strength to strength. Tomorrow sees the return of the tram to the capital city, and very state-of-the-art they look too. My goodness. The French are rightly proud at this reintroduction, trams disappeared from Paris in 1937. Their return shows France's commitment to the environment.

Vermont is to become the third of the United States to introduce Civil Unions for gay couples. I consider this to be a huge step forward even though it seems so small, I mean surely the dominoes will all fall over eventually, well possibly not ever Texas. I do however still find it disquieting that there is this difference between Civil Union and Marriage and I am certainly coming round to the way of thinking that Civil Union is the way forward and should be available to all.

I like this point in the year, almost a pendulum turning moment of stillness. Dark, not yet Christmas, coming up to the shortest day but not quite there yet. A time for reflection and a short teatime of the soul, or perhaps more of an early supper. It feels as though, at our furthest point from the sun, the veil between darkness and light, life and death is stretched so thinly you can almost see the other side, hear the gentle sussuration of the sands flowing from top to bottom of the hourglass.

I know that sounds either wildly pretentious or melancholic beyond redemption or maybe a little of both, but I don't feel the infinite sadness, just a profound spirituality that is hard to convey.

Addendum : I've just gone and read my friend Sleepy's blog for today and she gives an account and quote from the recent case brought to court in Ireland where two women, married in Vancouver tried to have the marriage recognised in Ireland. If you don't already read Sleepy's blog anyway, I'd like to strongly encourage you to read this post.